Facebook using beacons to show location 'tips'

January 30, 2015

Transcript

Facebook is out to destroy four square.
I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNet update.
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The juggernaut of social media known as Facebook rolled out a new feature called place tips.
It's basically FourSquare's worst nightmare.
If you have gps on when you're out around town.
You'll start to see these pop-ups on your Facebook newsfeed that tell you information about the place you're at.
It'll show what your friends posted about that location, along with things like a menu or upcoming events.
This goes beyond Wi-Fi and GPS.
Facebook is also putting Bluetooth beacons in some areas.
Like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and some other New York businesses.
It sends Bluetooth signals to nearby phones so the app could be more exact and knowing where you are and which tips to show.
For now, these tips only show up on the iPhone Facebook app and you can disable it in Facebook settings.
The whole concept with Foursquare's big vision to have facts and friend ratings about a place pop up when you walk inside.
But people are not using Four Square as often or even that new spin off Swarm, which is messy to jump back and forth between.
Facebook, however, is another story.
Everyone has that app on their phone.
And speaking of apps.
Spongebob Squarepants is bringing his pineapple under the sea to your smart phone.
Nickelodeon in planning to create a stand alone video service for watching on the phone or a tablet.
The channel's parent company, Viacom, is gonna unveil the new Nickelodeon subscription service next month.
It's not clear if this would be live programming or on demand.
Or even if it's gonna feature older shows, like Rocko's Modern Life.
But people are shifting away from watching TV on traditional ways on cable, and moving towards streaming on the go, from any device.
A stand alone service means Viacom joins cbs and hbo in offering something straight to consumers bypassing cable and satellite providers.
You're going to need a fast internet connection to watch this new form of streaming live television.
And if you think you have broadband Well I have some bad news for you.
The Federal Communications Commission says your broadband internet isn't good enough to be called broadband any more.
The FCC which oversees rules that govern the internet, has raised the standard for broadband to mean download speeds of 25 megabits per second up from four megabits.
And to be called broadband, the upload speeds need to be 3 megabits instead of 1. This new definition means that millions of Americans are suddenly no longer considered broadband subscribers, because the average speed in the U.S. is 10 megabits a second, not 25.
That's your tech news update.
You can stay updated at cnet.com and follow along on Twitter.
From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.
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